Miguel Bernal Jiménez (16 February
1910 – 26 July 1956) was a Mexican composer, organist, pedagogist and
musicologist.
He is widely regarded as the best representative of 20th century Mexican
religious music, in addition to his important contributions to the Mexican
nationalist music movement. He is considered by some to be the mainstay of
the nacionalismo sacro (sacred nationalism) movement.
Biography
He was born in the city of Morelia in the Mexican state of Michoacán. He
began his musical career at the age of seven as choir-boy in the Orfeón Pío
X, studying in the Colegio de Infantes de la Catedral. His talent was
discovered by his teachers Felipe Aguilera Ruiz and Ignacio Mier y Arriaga,
who succeeded in getting him recommended and admitted in 1928 to the
Instituto Pontificio de Música Sagrada (Pontifical Institute of Sacred
Music) of Rome by the Canónigo José María Villaseñor. In this institution he
was instructed in organ, counterpoint, fugue, paleographic musicology,
composition, instrumentation, harmony and Gregorian chant, by his teachers
Cesare Dobici, Raffaele Manari, Raffaele Casimiri, Paolo M. Ferretti, and
Licinio Refice. He graduated two years later with the titles of Doctor in
Gregorian chant, Master in composition, and organ concert performer.
In 1933, he returned to Mexico to be director of the Escuela Superior de
Música Sagrada (Sacred Music High School) of Morelia, a position he held for
twenty years. In Morelia he fought restlessly to create schools, give
concerts, courses and congresses. He published many books, sheet music, and
specialized magazines, giving foremost importance to sacred music. In 1939,
he founded the Schola Cantorum magazine, the first periodical to publish
musicological, musical, and pedagogic material. It was one of the most
important means of musical diffusion in his time.
In his time, Miguel Bernal made himself an important spot in multiple social
circles in Mexico, and made friends with other great musicians of his time,
including Manuel M. Ponce and Silvestre Revueltas. He was recognized
internationally and many of his works were premiered in Spain.
He created the Amigos de la Música (Music Friends) society in 1938. In 1944
he organized and directed the Coro de los Niños Cantores de Morelia (Morelia
Singing Boys Choir). In 1945 he became director of the Conservatorio de las
Rosas, where he worked to bring the institution up to date and gave its
current image. Between 1945 and 1946 he toured the United States and Canada
giving organ concerts. He was dean of the College of Music of the Loyola
University New Orleans until his death in 1956 due to a heart attack.
Miguel Bernal also regularly published in his periodical publication Schola
Cantorum.Work
His large musical repertoire includes diverse works. One of the most
noteworthy is Tata Vasco (1941), symphonic drama which speaks of Vasco de
Quiroga, called Tata Vasco by the native Tarascan people.[1] It premiered in
Pátzcuaro, Mexico in 1941 and was later performed in Madrid in 1948[2] with
costumes and scenery by Alejandro Rangel Hidalgo. This work combines
indigenous peoples’ chants, gregorian chants and romantic melodies to
represent each part of the story.
Bernal composed many of his works at the request of other parties. “Noche de
Morelia” (1941) was made by request of the local Red Cross, and premiered by
the Matinal Symphony Orchestra under the direction of its header and founder
Carlos Chávez. This work is representative of many of the customs of the
people of Morelia at the time. His Symphony-Poem "Mexico" (1946), one of his
most representative nationalist works, gave him the acknowledgment of the
Spanish composer Joaquin Turina.
In his "Concertino para Órgano y Orquesta" (1949) he manifests his own
admiration for great composers of the European Baroque and Classical
periods, the influence of which is not as noticeable in his other, earlier
works. Bernal Jiménez demonstrates his harmonious dexterity by arranging the
identity of the organ as a solo instrument and accompanies it
grandiloquently with an orchestra. The medieval altarpiece that designs this
work is characterized in its two first parts; "Mester de Juglares" and "Mester
de Clerecia".
"El Chueco" (1951) is considered as one the most representative works of
Mexican ballet of the 20th century. The work shows a nationalist sonority
characterized by popular themes, in a background that seems inherently
religious. The work was released in 1951 by the National Symphony Orchestra
in the Palacio de Bellas Artes and was directed by Bernal Jiménez himself.
His "Sinfonia Hidalgo" (1953) was requested by the "Universidad Michoacana
de San Nicolás de Hidalgo" and was released by the National Symphony
Orchestra by its author in the "Teatro Ocampo" of Morelia.
Style and influences
Because of his birth at the start of the Mexican Revolution, the works of
Miguel Bernal Jiménez are found to be defined by a marked nationalism. His
religious education and devotion to Catholicism, combined with his
nationalism, made him become the head of the movement known as "Nacionalismo
sacro", the product of the "motu proprio", published by the Pope Pius X in
1903. This document promoted the reintroduction of sacred music by medium of
blending it with regional elements. This, along with the religious tolerance
which was the product of the arrangements between the church and the Mexican
state after the "Guerra Cristera", defined the style of one of the musicians
with most influence in contemporary Mexican music.
Miguel Bernal Jiménez defended the application of innovative tendencies in
religious music to vindicate its supremacy as a holy art over the profane.
His style of music is eclectic, music that intends to encompass all the
elements of Mexico and to expose all the elements of its reality.
Miguel Bernal Jiménez also shows common elements of Manuel M. Ponce and
other nationalist composers of this era. He also seems to mix his music with
themes obtained from popular traditions, like work chants, religious mottoes
and melodies of political context.
Harmonically, however, his music is of a markedly conservative strain. It
bears the influences of the pan-modal style offered up by the Catholic
Church style of the twentieth century Schola Cantorum, along with elements
of Debussy and other composers thrown in to good effect. "Tres Cartas de
Mexico", for example, practically quotes Debussy's Nocturnes for
orchestra.[citation needed]
Musicological work
As a musicologist, he investigated the history of colonial music. After
arduous and tedious searches, he discovered the first archive of Mexican
colonial music, which dates from the 18th century, and comes from the
"School of Santa Rosa de Virreinato".
Pedagogical work
Miguel Bernal Jiménez also worked as a great pedagogist. His methods and
publications were tested with success in the "Conservatorio de las Rosas"
and the "Escuela Popular de Bellas Artes". In 1939 he founded the magazine "Schola
Cantorum" which was, for a long time, one of the most important media of
musical diffusion of the country. The magazine kept being published
periodically until the year 1974, and until that year, it conserved the
original format proposed by its creator. In this magazine, Bernal Jiménez
constantly published musical, musicological and pedagogical material under
pseudonyms such as "M.Mouse", "Q.U.D", "Primicerius", "Jaime Le Brungel" and
"Fray Florindo".
Miguel Bernal was a prolific academic and his bibliographic archive consists
of 11 books and 173 articles, many of which were used in the teachings of
sacred music in varied locations throughout the country, and in seminaries
in Mexico and abroad. In what are commonly regarded as his most important
works, he elaborated on methods of music theory in Gregorian Chant. Included
in this category are "La Disciplina Coral", "Las tres etapas de la ejecucion
gregoriana", "teoria del canto gregoriano", “El acompañamiento gregoriano”
and “La dirección gregoriana”.
Achievements
During his life he received the "Premio Pontificio" in three occasions
(1930, 1931 y 1932), the "Diploma de Honor de la Federación Teatral Mexicana"
(1941), the "Medalla al Mérito Civil", given by the newspaper "El Universal"
(1941), the "Premio Nacional" (1943) for the music used in the movie "La
Virgen que forjó una Patria", The "Condecoracion Generalisimo Morelos"
(1945) and the "Primer Premio del Concurso Chopin" (1949). In 1956, he was
declared "favorite child" of the state of Michoacán. |
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